§ 1. Number, selection and term of office.

The city council shall be composed of not less than five (5) members, who, unless sooner removed under the provisions of this charter, shall hold their office for a term of two (2) years, more or less, beginning on the date of their qualifying for said office and ending on the date that their successor, after having been duly elected, has qualified. The city council shall have the right by ordinance duly adopted to increase the number of its council members from five (5) to seven (7) members, and at a later date to nine (9) members and set the terms of said offices for a period of time not to exceed two (2) years, more or less, as previously stated. The city council shall provide by ordinance duly adopted for the election of four (4) of its membership from four (4) separate and distinct election precincts which shall be numbered one, two, three and four, and the fifth member shall be elected from the city at large and shall be elected to Place No. 5, and shall by virtue of said election automatically be the chairperson or Mayor of the City of Jacksonville, Texas, for the term of office for which the member is elected. The city council shall require that for a member of the city council to be eligible for election to said council that the candidate be a resident of the precinct in which the person is a candidate for election. The city council shall have the right to provide by ordinance duly adopted for separate polling places or a central polling place as deemed necessary; however, in no event (unless ordered by a final judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction) shall the city council change the number of precincts or their boundaries more than one time during any ten (10) year period following each preceding federal census beginning after the year 1980, or any other lesser period in the event the census is taken more frequently than once each ten (10) years. Nothing in this charter provision shall prohibit the city council from annexing territory adjacent to its corporate limits as prescribed by this charter and by law and increasing the size of any precinct that is adjacent to the newly annexed territory.

(Ord. No. 338, § 4, 1-11-77)